Hail to the Chief
by Readingtoomuch
Summary: They tell him he's the luckiest guy ever born, that he's living a charmed life. It all seems like a nightmare to Sam Evans, and it only gets worse when he meets the girl of his dreams.
1. Chapter 1

The Oval Office is a lot bigger than you might think, actually. It's a freakin' oval, so it's kinda roomy. There're the couches, the arm chairs, and of course the famous desk. The paintings hang on the walls, two hundred years of American badasses. There's a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr, and another of Winston Churchill. Sam doesn't recognize all the people in the paintings; history's never been his strong suit. He assumes that somewhere in the room there's a button that can blow up the world, or at least blow up Russia. The Cold War might be over, but he figures they've still got that one plugged up, just in case.

The secretary led him to one of the couches and asked him to wait. It's implied in her eyes that he's not to touch anything, not to screw up. He's done that enough in the media lately. Sam sits on his hands and waits. He quickly gets bored, but resists the urge to touch the vase on the end table; it was probably a gift from the emperor of Japan or something, and he'd be in deep shit if he broke it. Deeper shit, anyway.

He can hear the shoes against the hardwood in the hallway. It's always a group, a stampede of important, powerful people. Sam hasn't seen his dad alone since he was ten years old and the good people of Tennessee made Dwight Evans their governor. There was always an aide, a special assistant, an intern – God, just thinking about interns made Sam nauseous. The clicking of heels on hardwood ceased as the door opened. Anyone with half a brain would stand at attention when the leader of the free world marched into the room, entourage swirling around him. Sam Evans slouched further back into a couch that Harry Truman used to fart on.

Dwight Everett Evans, the forty-seventh president of the United States of America, had the look of a powerful man. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a frame that lent itself well to dark suits. His eyes twinkled from a tanned face, a working man's face that had burned under the sun during many a hard day's work. His golden hair was greying at the temples. It was a visage chiseled by God, tailor made for Mt. Rushmore or a presidential quarter. His teeth were freakishly white, gleaming from behind full lips that had kissed hundreds of babies. His hands wielded farm tools and executive fountain pens with equal dexterity.

"I'm not mad at you, Sam," the president said to his son. The aides and flunkies instantly hushed.

"Do they have to be here?" Sam couldn't figure why an Assistant Secretary of the Interior and the Deputy Attorney General needed to be involved in this little father/son chat. Everything in this office is taped, so he's sure they could review the conversation later if they were bored enough.

For a moment, President Evans looked as if he was going to say that yes, they did need to be here for this, but then his shoulders relaxed as he slumped down next to his son. He gave "the look" to the lead lackey and with some resistance, the rest filed out. It was a full minute before the father spoke.

"I know that this whole situation is embarrassing, and Sam, I just want to say that I'm sorry."

The younger blonde pretended like it was all no big deal. And really, what his father's talking about is no big deal, not compared to Sam's news. "S'okay. It's not like you did anything."

Early that morning, _The New York Star_ released the illegally gained transcripts of one Samuel Dwight Evans, senior at Georgetown University, and, not so coincidentally, First Son. If the invasion of privacy hadn't been egregious enough (the Press Secretary's phrase), the grades on the transcript had sealed the deal. True, there was an "A" in rowing, but things went downhill from there. And now the entire world knew about it. Knew that he was an idiot.

"But if I wasn't in my position, this wouldn't have happened. They're using you to get at me."

Sam knew that it really was all about his dad, but it didn't feel wonderful knowing that it was _always_ all about his dad. Everything was. But whatever. The transcript deal was just the icing on the cake; his commander-in-chief wasn't going to be nearly so apologetic in a few minutes.

"But hey, let's use this as an opportunity to move forward." Ah, ever the politician; everything, every tragedy, is just another opportunity for advancement. "I think this grade deal needs some work. Maybe we should look into a tutor to help you with your classes."

"Dad, you don't have time to worry about stuff like this. I can handle it." Sam loosened his tie; he hated suits and ties, but his dad said that everyone had to respect the Oval Office, which meant you couldn't hang around in here in shorts or whatever.

"No," the President said, giving his most photogenic smile. "You're my son, of course I've got time. Hey," he said, struck with a thought, "what about that intern, that blonde girl. I forget her name, but you know who I'm talking about."

"Quinn." Sam's stomach churned as he felt his throat burn.

"Yeah. Joe said she graduated last year from Yale, first in her class." Joe Stebbins was the chief of staff, the jack-of-all-trades presidential gatekeeper. If you wanted to see the president, you had to get through him. CNN called him the second most powerful man in Washington. "And I remember you seemed to like her; y'all talked at that fundraiser." Sometimes a carefully planned "y'all" escaped, a folksy reminder that the world's most powerful man was just one of the masses, a good old boy. Voters ate that up. "She could probably help you with your school work."

"Yeah, dad. I'm sure she graduated from Yale and applied for an internship at the White House just to tutor some idiot in Spanish 102."

"Hey, none of that. You're an Evans, and let me tell you –"

"Dad, c'mon . . ." He doesn't really want to hear the morale speech, variations of which his father uses at just about every fundraiser and rally.

"No, just listen. I know school's hard; I had trouble myself. But, if you apply yourself, work hard, maybe get a tutor, get some extra help, then you'll do fine, and the next time those tabloid bastards decide to steal your personal information, you'll have a lot more to show 'em."

He could make you feel good about the next Great Depression. It worked on everyone, everyone except Sam. He had bigger fish to fry, unfortunately. Swallowing hard, Sam moved past the transcript issue. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course." Dwight Evans encouraged citizens to use him to lessen their burdens, to tell him of their problems; he was a master of the Town Hall meeting.

There was little to do but just let it out; his father was the spin master, but Sam knew there was no way to spin this.

"She's pregnant."

His dad honestly looked baffled; that hadn't happened since the Prime Minister of Italy came for a state visit and vomited on the President after a hot dog eating contest at the Iowa State Fair. "Who's pregnant?"

"Quinn." Sam didn't see a spark of recognition; his dad met a lot of people. "The intern."

For a moment, Sam got the same look that had cowed the premier of China into signing another nuclear limitation pact. For a moment. Then the panic set in.

"You do understand," his father said, voice cold and tinged with worry, "that I'm running for reelection?"

Sam had known it would turn in this direction, but it was still freaky to see his father lose his calm, to change so drastically, so quickly; that wasn't a presidential quality. "Dad, I know, and –"

"I'm the Republican, the family values candidate," he got up and started pacing the gold carpet, his voice steadily rising, "and now my own son has knocked up an intern!"

"We didn't mean for it to happen." He felt like dirt. "It was just one night, about a month ago, after that fundraiser." Not dirt – dirt can take a lot of heat; Sam feels like a chastened child.

"Oh, great – a one night stand! The media's going to have a field day!" The President cocked his head towards one of the office's side doors. "Joe! Joe, get in here!"

Seconds later the chief of staff burst through the door, the dog quickly at his master's side.

"He's knocked up that intern, the blonde. How do we handle this?"

The shorter man was at work immediately. He was the best at his job, and had probably been listening to the entire conversation through some secret peep hole or something.

"Alright, we bring her to the convention when you're nominated for reelection. She holds his hand, stands on the stage with you and the First Lady." It was like Sam wasn't even in the room. His dad nodded at everything Stebbins said. "It was a mistake, but a mistake out of love; the voters will eat it up, because she's pretty. We'll make sure everyone knows she's basically already part of the family." The aide smoothed a hand through his hair; he was in his element, and seeing this was like watching a master at work. "We'll have the wedding a week before the election, here at the White House, televised."

No one asked Sam anything. He was too stunned to interject.

"Can we really pull this off?"

Stebbins nodded. "This is out of left field, Mr. President, but we can definitely use this. An American fairy tale." He spared Sam the briefest of glances. "He's our prince, and after what hit the papers this morning with the transcript, voters will be feeling sympathetic. We've gotta get the girl's face in the news, fast."

"Hey," Sam said, finally moving up from the couch. "Quinn and I aren't together or –"

His father ignored him and spoke to the chief. "How do present her?"

"We don't mention her _condition_ yet," the chief of staff said with a queasy look on his face, "but we need to show the nation how in love they are, what a beautiful couple they make. If we play our cards right, get them enough press time together, by the time we announce she's knocked up, the public will be gaga over them anyway – it's the twenty first century, people have kids together all the time."

"What about the Religious Right? I can't win without their votes."

Stebbins shrugged. "Jesus was besties with a whore; all those people ever talk about is forgiveness anyway. Besides, Sam and the girl are getting married; he's gonna make an honest woman out of her – those old farts love salvation stories like that."

As they were planning out his future, making wedding plans for him and a girl he barely knew, Sam got up and walked out, totally unnoticed and forgotten. Plans were being made, and the most powerful men in the world didn't have time for the little people – that was politics.

XxXxX

Interestingly, his Secret Service agents' names were Lou and Stu. They were pretty cool, and Sam didn't begrudge them like a lot of former First Kids had; he figured that they did their best to keep him from being kidnapped or shot, and for that he was appreciative. Of course, it did get a little old, constantly being shadowed by two guys the size of NFL linebackers.

"Guys," he said when they reached the door of his apartment. "I think I've got it from here; thanks."

Sam was a student at Georgetown, a school he could have never gotten into without some parental help of the presidential nature, and since the campus was right in the heart of Washington, he could have easily lived at the White House. That was every kid's dream, right? Wrong. Sam had stayed just until college, and then he'd beat it out of there like a bat out of hell.

The apartment was pretty awesome, he had to admit. The president's son couldn't stay just anywhere; there were security considerations, if nothing else. No roommate, so that was cool, and it was about a thousand times more spacious than any dorm a college kid was used to. Also, it presently had a pregnant girl in it. So, there was that.

"How'd it go?" Quinn nervously asked from his couch. Even though Sam felt like he'd been up for hours, it was just now eight, the sun only up for an hour or two.

At four a.m. that morning, Sam awoke to a knocking on his door. If whoever it was had made it past Lou and Stu, it must be important, he knew. Imagine his surprise to find a rumpled looking Quinn Fabray standing in the hallway outside his door.

They'd met a few times before the incident. She was a newly minted White House intern, and he was the President's son, so they'd crossed paths a time or two. Last month, though, things had taken quite a turn. They'd both attended a celebratory fundraiser; the president had out raised his opponent by twenty percent. The champagne had been flowing freely, and they'd started talking. Turned out, they had a lot in common. Quinn came from a relatively wealthy background, and Sam was, you know, the son of the President. Okay, maybe not that much in common.

She was a genius, he scraped by in school. She was driven, he liked video games. But she was sweet, and he was interested. They'd talked for the better part of two hours, totally ignoring an oil baron from Texas and a casino magnate from Nevada, people that Sam was supposed to be glad-handing. Instead, he'd brought Quinn another champagne, and then he'd had another, and then something was said about how she didn't have to take the bus back to her apartment, because they gave him a car and driver for these parties, and then, well then they were naked in her bed.

They'd seen each other twice more since then, but he was busy with school, and she was busy working in the White House, so they didn't have anything official going, they weren't dating or anything. In short, Sam had in no way expected to find a crying girl in his arms at four in the morning.

He'd left her in his bed and dressed; Sam knew he couldn't beat around the bush with this; he had to get to the White House, fast. With everything else on his mind that morning, he hadn't even been particularly fazed when Lou had passed him the newspaper with his college transcript plastered across the front. A "D" in British Literature didn't hold a candle to paternity.

"Um, there was some yelling," he admitted in answer to her question. Shit, he didn't even really know how to act around this girl; they hardly knew each other, but they were having a baby, and the most powerful man in the world was now planning their wedding. "But no one's mad at you, so don't worry about that."

Quinn shook her head. "As soon as this gets out, everyone's going to think I'm a gold-digger."

He sat down on the edge of the cushion; there weren't a lot of arguments he could say against that; having a political father, he knew how the media reacted to everything. "It's not true, though." That was pretty weak, but it was the best he could come up with.

They sat without speaking for what felt like a long time. Outside, Sam could hear the bustling sounds of a busy city, the clang of horns and the noise of the streets. Inside, he heard the air conditioner pump cool air into the apartment, as the clock on the wall, a gift to his father from the President of Israel, clicked sixty times a minute. Sitting next to him was a beautiful girl he didn't really know, an unborn baby he hadn't expected, and a future that scared him to death.

Life as a politician's kid had never been easy, but Sam knows everything's about to turn crazy in ways he'd never imagined. He just hopes he makes it. No, it's not just him anymore. He hopes _they_ make it.

 _To Be Continued_

 **I hope you enjoyed this first installment! Please review and let me know what you think! In the next chapter we'll get Quinn's perspective!**


	2. Chapter 2

In the eighth grade, she'd told her teacher that she wanted to be the first female Senate Majority Leader. In high school, she'd interned in Columbus with an Ohio state senator. During college, she'd volunteered with two congressional campaigns, and it was the winner of the last who'd recommended her for a White House intern position upon graduation from Yale. She'd been on her way.

The White House job was amazing. Quinn Fabray, Ohio nobody, was a tiny cog in the greatest machine of government that the world had ever seen. And she was working towards something she believed in! President Evans promised equal opportunity, more jobs, and a stronger America on the world stage. On her first day, she'd passed Henry Freakin' Kissinger, aged former secretary of state, on the way to the restroom. Quinn Fabray had arrived.

Of course she'd heard of Sam Evans. He'd just graduated high school at the start of his father's campaign for president, and the media loved him. He was gorgeous, all-American, everything a girl could hope for. It had been pretty evident that he hated the spotlight, but he bore his burden gracefully. Quinn shook his hand on her third day in the White House, and had passed him in the hallway once or twice after that, but she'd been too busy to spare the First Kid much thought.

But then a month ago she'd gone to that fundraiser. She'd felt out of place among the high rollers, and he'd looked bored. Quinn Fabray wasn't particularly brave, and it had been he who'd started the conversation. As it turned out, he hated Washington, while she loved it. Sam Evans liked the slower pace of rural Tennessee, while Quinn Fabray thrived on being right in the middle of the seat of power. They didn't disagree on everything, though.

"I don't know much about it," she'd admitted, "but it seems like Batman would definitely win. I could easily see him using Kryptonite tipped throwing stars or something."

"Exactly!" Sam had exclaimed loudly, surprising a banker from Connecticut who'd just written a check for twenty thousand dollars to the PAC. "I mean, Superman is stronger, yeah, but Batman's so much more resourceful! He uses his mind, you know?"

They'd probably had one champagne too many. Thinking back, it had probably been two or three too many. Quinn had mentioned something about hating riding the metro, and then her new friend, blood of the president, had noted that he had the use of a car and a driver. Those two Secret Service guys, Bill and Dill, or whatever, had ushered them into the back of a black SUV.

Face really, maddeningly, adorably red from the champagne, Sam had stood with his arm propped over his head against her doorframe as he told her that he'd never had so much fun at a political event before. "I think maybe I'll make sure you're on the guest list for the next one," he'd grinned, his speech only slightly slurred.

She'd never been good at flirting, and flirting tipsy was just god-awful. "Uh, um, you know, if you wanted, I guess you could come," Quinn remembered giggling then. "Not come! Come in, I meant!"

He'd smiled, shown off some really pretty teeth, and then waved the two secret service agents off. Quinn had never thought herself easy, but damn, he was just so, so good looking. And his abs, oh, his abs. The morning sun edged into the window to find her face plastered against those abs. She'd been so, so hungover, and had never had so much fun.

And now, for nothing more than great abs and a big dick, Quinn's future was gone. She could never achieve anything now - in the unlikely event that her career ever did take off, people would say it was because she was the mother of the president's grandchild.

XxXxX

Chief of Staff Joe Stebbins decided that Quinn would make her debut to the nation at a White House event for children's literacy. It was family friendly, he said, and the perfect venue to introduce the First Son's girlfriend to America. They were supposed to be there in half an hour, and Quinn was vomiting. She wasn't sure if it was morning sickness or nerves.

The Secret Service had swept her apartment the day before, so they didn't have to accompany Sam inside anymore. Quinn lifted her head from the toilet bowl to find him with his back against the bathroom wall, face white as a sheet.

"I, uh," he stuttered. "I knocked but you didn't answer."

Quinn pushed herself up. Sam moved closer, but she held up her hand to stop him. She felt disgusting and the last thing she wanted was him looking too close. "I'm okay," she managed.

He obviously didn't believe her. Sam turned on the sink and wet a washcloth. "Does this happen a lot? You see it in movies," he wrung out the cloth and offered it, "but I didn't know if it was like -"

"It sucks ass."

Sam frowned. Quinn could feel him staring at her back as she brushed her teeth. The minty taste of the toothpaste made her stomach roll.

"I'm sorry."

She spit. The son of the President of the United States of America was watching her spit. "You didn't do anything." She had to fix her makeup again.

"I guess," Sam shuffled his feet, "I guess I kinda did, you know, what with the, the," he sat down on the edge of her bathtub. "The sperm. You know, it fertilizes the egg, your egg. And it was my sperm, so, I'm sorry. That you're sick."

Before Quinn could come up with a response to that, Phil, or Will, or whatever the agent's name was, stuck his head through the door. "Sir," he said to Sam, "we need to leave soon for the event."

Sam shooed the agent away, promising they'd be ready in a minute.

"If you don't feel like doing this, we don't have to."

She'd been trying to come up with excuses already. Nothing worthwhile came to mind. "But we _do_ have to." The leader of the free world didn't offer choices. He issued orders. Quinn walked past him to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to put on her shoes.

Sam sat down next to her. It was the second time he'd been in her bedroom, after that night when they got themselves in trouble. "No, you don't. I'll take the heat for this." He took her hand. "All that wedding crap? It's batshit crazy. You don't really have to marry me, Quinn."

He'd told her about how the president and his chief of staff had mapped out her future in the Oval Office. Damage control was the Washington term for solving crises like this. Quinn had been so stunned that she hadn't been able to immediately say anything. She'd slumped back into his couch and stared at the wall.

When she cooled down, she knew she shouldn't have been surprised. She knew politics, it was her only interest, really. That was how people like Stebbins, people like the president, would react to a situation like hers. The First Son knocking up an intern would be a political obstacle. You solved obstacles, and damn the actual people involved. Quinn was politically savvy enough to know that Stebbins's solution was actually brilliant, a PR masterstroke if it worked. She'd respect it more if it wasn't her life in the crosshairs.

And it's Sam's life, too. He's sweet, he's trying to offer her a way out. She didn't know the father of her child that well. They'd had sex once, been out on one date, and she'd cried in his arms when she'd told him the news. That was pretty much it. But she knew that he hated this life and didn't want her to be trapped in it, too.

She squeezed his hand, looked into his earnest eyes. "Let's just get through today, and then we can figure the rest of it out."

Sam shrugged, pushed his bangs away from his forehead. "I just don't want you to feel trapped."

Too late.

XxXxX

The First Lady was opening a women's health clinic in Portland, so they asked Quinn to read a story to the kids at the literacy summit. Stebbins said it was a smart move; when, in a few months, they announced she was pregnant, the public would remember that they'd first seen Quinn in a nurturing, maternal role.

At first the press ignored her, probably because they thought she was just another intern. She'd been just another intern merely a week ago. But then they saw her holding the hand of the president's son. They saw the First Son put his hand to the small of her back and guide her to her seat. The photographers had no idea that the little touches, the little signs of affection, had been encouraged, or rather ordered, by Joe Stebbins, the coldest, most ruthless man in DC. Within a few minutes her eyes were aching from all the camera flashes.

"I guess you've had to deal with this all your life," Quinn whispered to Sam while they waited for the president to arrive. The president was always last. The president did not wait. "How are you not blind?"

"You get used to it," he said, scowling at a photographer who knelt not five feet in front of them. "Eventually, it'll all just be background noise." Sam leaned a little closer, whispered with his lips close to her ear. "I've asked the Secret Service to shoot them, but they say it's a bad idea."

She laughed and it's that image that graces the front page of the Life and Style section section the next morning. She won't make the actual front page, of the entire paper, until their news breaks, much later.

"Is it weird that I'm nervous about reading a ten page book to six year olds?"

"You'll do great." Sam puts his arm around the back of her chair. She's starting to pick up on little things about him, like how he's always going to be as spread out as possible, and how his bangs invariably fall over his eyes. "But no, it's not weird. I'm always nervous around these people."

"You don't ever look it." It's true. He's been in the media for years now, and though sometimes he looked annoyed, and who wouldn't be with a camera constantly shoved in your face, most of the time the First Son appeared at ease with the burdens of his father's job.

Sam shrugged. "Presidential genes, I guess." He pointed to the group of small children being led into the room. "You're up."

XxXxX

For the day at least, she's the new people's princess. The tabloids loved her. "First Son's First Love," _The Star_ read. Her mother in Lima was soon beleaguered with press on the lawn, and people Quinn had gone to high school with were being harassed for comments.

Her coworkers did not love her.

She shared a tiny office with three other interns, and the morning after the literacy event, the event where she'd come to the world's attention, Quinn was met with cold stares at work.

She'd known it would happen. She'd told Sam that from the moment everyone realized she was involved with the boss's kid, she would be known as a gold digger. A man in similar circumstances would get friendly slaps on the back, get applause for "going for it." Quinn was labeled as a conniving bitch.

It was just little things. Someone went out to get coffee for everyone and "forgot" to ask Quinn what she wanted. She knew everyone was going to a bar after work, but no one asked if she wanted to join. Everyone was obviously making a point of having the newspaper page with her face on it out on their desks. It was college level hazing bullshit.

She knew she shouldn't care. She's working in the White House, and no one comes here to make friends. But she didn't ask for any of this, this relationship in the public eye, and they all should know her well enough by now to know that she wants to work her way up the ladder on her own merits. And now she's getting upset and damn these pregnancy hormones. She goes to the restroom and tries to get a grip. They _will not_ see her like this.

It gets worse.

Working in the White House is a power game - everyone wants some, and there's never enough to go around. Quinn and her coworkers are interns, which means they're the lowest of the low. Whatever the lowest job is, interns are three levels below that. So, the guy in charge of the interns is not particularly important or powerful. He hates this fact. He takes out his frustrations on the only people beneath him.

"Do you have that funding report for the Council of Economic Advisors?"

Shit. She puts on her most contrite face. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I thought you wanted it in two days. That's tomorrow."

"You're right, I did want it in two days, but then you decided to take a day off to canoodle," he spat, "with your boyfriend." No one took a day off in the White House. The saying went that Friday was awesome, because there's only two more working days till Monday.

She grimaced. This was the first time anyone had specifically mentioned her situation. Up to this point, there had only been less than subtle hints and annoyed glances. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll get right on it, and have -"

"Forget it, I don't have time to fuck around." He yelled at another intern and told them to work on the report. Turning back to Quinn, the supervisor said, "Just go file something. This is the fucking White House, and there are a thousand people who want your job. I could replace you like that," he snapped his fingers. "So, don't think that just because you're fucking around with the president's kid that you're better than the rest of us."

The worst part is that Quinn knows he's vocalizing what everyone else in the office is thinking. In their minds, she thinks she's better than them, thinks that she can cheat the system and move up faster and further than they could even dream.

Defying all logic, things actually get even worse.

The dressing down finished, they both turned around to find Sam Evans standing in the doorway, a bag of Chinese food dangling from his hand, with two huge Secret Service agents flanking him.

The internship coordinator's mouth fell open. No one in the First Family had ever been down here. This was the basement. They kept the old files and the unimportant people down here. Anyone of any standing would never be caught dead here.

Until today.

"Everything alright?" He'd obviously heard everything.

Quinn moved to put herself between Sam and her boss. "Sam, it's fine."

"No, it's not." He moved closer to her boss, a man several inches shorter. "You don't get to talk to her like that."

"I. What I meant was, I -" The man's mouth kept opening and closing, like a fish.

Quinn knew she was actually watching her career go up in flames; there is no other possible result of what's going on in front of her. She'd expected it from the moment she'd learned she was pregnant with the president's grandchild, but actually seeing it happen was something else entirely.

"Yeah, well, whatever you meant, quit being a dick." He doesn't wait for an answer. Turning to Quinn, Sam held up the bag of Chinese takeout. "I thought you might like to have lunch together?"

What she wants is to just get out of the room, and Quinn doesn't have to see the look on her boss's face to know that there's no need to come back after lunch. Or ever.

XxXxX

"So, I was tellin' Blaine," Sam said around a mouth full of lo mein, "he's my best friend, by the way. Blaine's gay; dad's advisors say I shouldn't be friends with a gay dude cause we're Republicans and the evangelicals don't like gay dudes, but I don't care who's gay or straight or whatever." He swallowed, finally, and picked up an egg roll. "Anyway, I was talking with Blaine, and he was saying . . ."

Quinn was staring out the window, oblivious to gay dude Blaine's words of wisdom. She kept replaying the scene from her office. Her former office. It was all over now. Her career was over before it had really started.

"You want the last egg roll," Sam offered, evidently finished with a story she'd heard not a word of.

Quinn finally woke up to the other person in the room. "You shouldn't have done that."

Sam mournfully shook his head; he looked extremely guilty. "I know. They're so greasy, I'm going to have to do, like, a thousand extra crunches to make up for lunch today."

God. What the hell has happened to her life? "No, I meant that you shouldn't have said that to my boss."

He looked confused for a second. "That guy? He was being a jerk to you."

"He's my _boss_. Or, he was."

"What are you talking about?"

Quinn bit her lip, took a breath. There's probably some law on the books about screaming at the president's son while you're actually in the White House. She needed to get him outside, away from those Secret Service agents, so she could throttle him. The mental image was the only thing keeping her going right now. How could he be so obtuse?

"Sam," she said, patiently. "I just lost my job."

His eyebrows knit together, like he'd just seen the sun rise in the west or something. "Huh?"

"My job. It's gone."

"Well, I'll just go down there and tell him -"

"No, holy shit, don't do that." She shouldn't have to explain what rising and falling by your own merits, your own skills, meant. "It's done now."

"Dad'll get you another job. Any job you want." Sam tried what he obviously thought was an affable smile. "You wanna be Secretary of Defense? He hates the guy doing it now, so I'm pretty sure there's going to be an opening."

She didn't trust herself to open her mouth for several long seconds. Quinn watched the smile sink from his face when he realized that he couldn't just laugh the problem away.

"Can you ask your guys to give me a ride home? I'm really tired, and my stomach's bothering me. I don't think I can stand the metro today."

He didn't try to pick up the conversation.

XxXxX

Quinn did a quick Google search to make sure copious amounts of ice cream wouldn't cause her unborn child to sprout a second head or anything, and thus reassured, spent the rest of the afternoon with her new best friends, Hagen and Daaz.

Fate had been kind of pernicious lately, what with the unplanned pregnancy and getting fired from her job, but at least her roommate was out of the apartment when Sam dropped her off at home. Quinn didn't think she could stand listening to her blather about how the congressman she worked for had recently been selected for the "Hottest on the Hill" spring catalog. What did that have to do with getting bills passed?

Not that Quinn would ever be involved in getting bills passed. Not anymore. She didn't know what she was going to do, and that was the worst part.

Since middle school, Quinn Fabray had had everything planned out, with a spreadsheet, in fact. She was going to an Ivy League school, and that would give her the best prospects of getting an internship in Washington. After the internship, someone, a congressman, a senator, a high level staffer, someone, would hire her for their staff as a real employee. She'd work for several years, move up the ranks, all the while steadily gaining influence and support. And then she'd go back to Ohio and run for an open House seat, and maybe governor or senator a few years after that. It had been the perfect plan.

But now, for the first time in her life, Quinn Fabray was adrift, didn't know what she was going to do. Getting fired meant that she had no stepping stone to future prospects. She'd suddenly gone from a full work schedule to an empty calendar.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She knew that, come hell or high water, in about eight months she'd be screaming in a hospital bed, pushing out a baby that had no place on the spreadsheet.

The doorbell rang, and she swore, then and there, that if Kim, the damned roommate, forgot her keys one more time, she was just going to let her sleep outside. But it's not Kim. It's Sam Evans.

The look on his face could probably be explained by the fact that she's wearing an extremely large, extremely old purple bathrobe, and that her hair's a mess and her mascara's dried in dark trenches down the length of her face. To complete the picture, she's holding an open ice cream carton and has a spoon sticking out the side of her mouth.

"Oh," was all he said.

She knew she should probably be embarrassed, but frankly, she didn't have the energy to stir up any more emotions at this point. She did, however, remove the spoon.

"Don't you ever call ahead?"

"Sorry, I don't have your number."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Says the guy who has access to the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and probably ten other government agencies that don't officially exist."

His smirk looked halfway guilty, halfway amused. "Well, I don't like to take advantage of who my dad is."

"Really?"

He nodded.

"Hmm, it didn't seem to bother you earlier today when you stalked into where I worked like you owned the place, and then proceeded to chew out my boss. That seems like something you'd do if you didn't mind taking advantage of who your dad is."

The smirk fell away.

Quinn turned and walked back into her apartment. She supposed he followed, but she didn't look back to see.

"I'm sorry, Quinn."

She put the ice cream back in the freezer before slumping into a purple pile on her couch. "I'm tired, I don't want to talk about it."

Quinn didn't know what she expected him to do. Maybe leave. Maybe pester her with offers to use his proximity to the presidency to get her a much better job than the one she lost. She didn't expect him to apologize for his semen.

"I'm sorry I've got, like, magic jizz or whatever."

Her mouth fell open, because, really, what the hell? There he sat, his pink lips pursed, his long fingers pulling at the hem of his shirt, saying something totally crazy.

"I probably shouldn't even ask," Quinn sighed, pushing her out of control hair out of her face, "But what the hell are you talking about?"

Sam spread his hands, palms up. He really did have long fingers. "I mean, that's gotta be it, right? You get pregnant with any other guy's kid and you don't lose your job, you don't end up in the newspaper." He licked his lips, which made them even pinker, if possible. "Gotta be something about my crazy baby gravy."

She smiled. She didn't want to, but she did. "Yeah, that's got to be it."

He held out his arms and scooted closer. Hugs really do help, and he's warm and his shirt's really soft, and he smells nice. He smelled like soap and manliness, whatever that meant.

"I really am sorry, Quinn," Sam whispered, voice serious again. He had his arms around her back, holding her to him. "It sucks so much, and I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said into his shoulder. It's true, it's not _totally_ his fault that she'd been fired. "Everyone in that room had it out for me as soon as they found out about us. It wouldn't have been long before I lost my job, even if you hadn't called my boss a dick."

"He was being a dick."

"Yeah, but those of us who aren't related to the leader of the free world can't just go around pointing it out when people are being dicks."

He's rubbing her back with the flat of his hand; it felt really good. "We're saying "dick" a lot."

"It feels liberating."

Sam nodded. "It kinda does. Seriously, someone like you isn't going to be without a job for long." He squeezed her shoulder; it wasn't beneath her notice that they've never actually touched so much, not sober, anyway. "Again, totally sorry my magic splooge screwed up your life."

"How many slang words for semen do you know?"

"Plenty," he smiled. And then, out of left field: "Can I kiss you?"

She was starting to grasp that he really didn't care much for transitions and just said whatever was on his mind as soon as he thought it. She'd rather talk about kissing than sperm.

"Why? I look horrible."

Sam shrugged. "It's ok. You've had a rough day."

"So, you don't disagree when I say that I look horrible?"

"I hate women. You've got an incredibly hot guy wanting to kiss you, and you decide to be insulted."

"Wow. I mean, just, wow. I really don't know what to say to that."

"Say yes," he grinned.

She didn't stop him when he leaned in. They've never actually kissed before. Drunken slobbering didn't count. When he pulled back, Quinn said, "Your lips are really nice."

"I used to date a lesbian cheerleader who said they were like soft angel wings."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to ask about the lesbian part, but just so you know, it's usually not a great idea to talk about the old girl with the new girl, especially when the new girl is pregnant."

"Sorry, I don't have a lot of experience with wooing women."

"I guess the president's son doesn't have to work very hard at it, does he?"

The crooked grin again. "This will probably go in a presidential trivia book one day, but you're actually the first girl I've ever drunkenly hooked up with."

"That'll be good to know if I'm ever on Jeopardy. 'This incredibly hot former intern once shacked up with presidential goofball Sam Evans'," she mimed in a spectacularly awful Alex Trebek impression.

Sam clenched his hand like he was holding a buzzer. "Who is Quinn Fabray?"

"A Jeopardy champion _and_ the scion of a political dynasty? You're multitalented."

He stuck his tongue out at her. "I don't know what a scion is, but I do know that your Trebek impression sucked. But you're in luck, because I happen to be an impressions expert."

"Really?"

He nodded earnestly. "Totally. I hope you're not busy tonight, because I'm about to do my dad's inaugural address as Yoda."

It was a horrible day, no doubt about it. Probably one of her worst days ever, up to that point. But the ending improved, a little. Things always look brighter when you're laughing.

 _To Be Continued_

 **Thank you to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter! You're all very, very kind! If you don't mind, I'd love some reviews on this chapter. Let me know what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

**The rating for this story is still T, but this chapter edges a little closer to the M side of things.**

He hated these things. It was beyond unfair that he had to attend a state banquet.

Sam was no presidential historian, but he knew that during most, probably all, previous administrations, presidents had done all they could to keep their kids out of the spotlight. Not so with the Evans Administration, at least in the case of the oldest Evans child.

"Stevie and Stacy don't have to go."

"Your brother and sister are children," the President of the United States of America said. "You're an adult, so you can support your family by showing up, smiling, and making pleasant conversation." Dwight Evans stared into a gilt mirror and straightened his bowtie. "Adulthood means being responsible and doing things that you don't want to do. It's not just about sleeping with interns."

It was a repeat adapted from one of his more recent speeches about accountability in government. Sam had picked up long ago that most of what he heard from his dad had already been tested on focus groups and politicians. Admittedly, the president hadn't included the bit about interns when he'd delivered his address to Congress.

Sam was spared from having to come up with an appropriate response when his mother walked into the room.

The First Lady of the United States was a beautiful woman. When magazines published their profiles on her, they generally noted that she was a rare combination of elegance and comfort, a beauty that awed, but didn't intimidate. She was soft and welcoming, but strong and firm, as well. Dwight Evans was the rare popular president, but his wife always polled higher.

"You don't have to constantly bring that up, Dwight," Mary Evans said.

"Scandal brings down politicians. If we don't handle this exactly right, it could derail my reelection chances."

His wife rolled her eyes. "If the voters care that much about what the president's son does after hours, then the country can't be saved, and you might as well resign now." She ignored her husband's glare and turned to the aforementioned son.

"You look very handsome, Samuel," though this didn't stop her from smoothing the lapels on his tux and straightening his hair. "I'm excited to finally meet Quinn tonight."

Call him crazy, but Sam hadn't wanted a state banquet in honor of the governor-general of Canada to be the venue where his parents met his pregnant kinda girlfriend. Not kinda pregnant; she was definitely pregnant, the doctor had confirmed that. But kinda his girlfriend. He still didn't know where they stood, exactly.

"It'd be nice if she could meet you in a semi-normal way, like for dinner or something."

"This is dinner," the president piped up from across the room. "It's a very nice, very fancy dinner."

"It would be better your way," the first lady admitted, ignoring her husband. "But Joe says this is a great opportunity to get you and Quinn in the public eye." It was no secret that Mary Evans loathed her husband's chief of staff, but the fact that she was going along with his plans proved that she respected his judgment, at least in this area. "So, tell me more about Quinn," she smiled.

That was kind of a sticky subject, because he didn't have all that much to tell. He knew she was beautiful, but anyone who saw her knew that. He knew she was driven and ambitious. He knew she liked politics, which was kinda worrying, but whatever. He knew he liked her, but that was really the extent of his knowledge.

Well, scratch that. Sam did know for a fact that she's nice, because she'd been helping him study for his exams. She'd brushed it off by saying that she didn't have anything else to do, "Now that I've joined the ranks of the unemployed." He really enjoyed their time together, even if studying was his least favorite thing in the world, aside from the White House Press Corps.

"She's really cool, mom. I know you're going to like her."

XxXxX

"Wow."

He didn't mean to say it out loud, but seeing her, it just flowed out.

Quinn blushed, the edge of her mouth pulled up in an embarrassed grin.

"You are," he can't really think of anything to say. She's the kind of pretty that steals the words from your lips, that leaves you floundering like a fish trapped on the shore. "You're gorgeous."

And she was. He didn't mind admitting that the cut of the gown drew his eyes to her chest; it was a beautiful chest. Her dress wasn't too revealing, this was the White House, after all, but Sam couldn't help thinking that the fashion designer responsible had meant to tease him. The best description he could come up with was "mega hot angel."

"Your mouth's hanging open," she admonished, though Sam noted that her eyes still looked pretty pleased. "People are starting to stare."

"Yeah, they're staring at you."

"Stop it."

"It's true." He kissed her cheek, careful not to smudge her makeup. They've probably got the weirdest relationship on the planet, brought together by an unplanned pregnancy and a presidential decree, but Sam found that he had absolutely no problems with kissing her. She hadn't complained, either. He offered her his arm. They passed a floor length mirror and he knew they were definitely the hottest pair in the White House since the Kennedys.

"You excited about tonight?" Sam asked, leading her towards the stairs. He's not particularly excited, but knew she's a huge political nerd, so maybe at least one of them will have a good time.

"It'd be better if I wasn't so nervous about meeting your parents."

"Don't be. They're normal people." He guided her through the halls to the residence, where the White House stopped being an office for the leader of the free world and became his family's home.

"They're the president and first lady."

"Eh," Sam shrugged, "believe it or not I don't think of them in that way. Dad wasn't very presidential when he was trying to explain puberty to me, though I guess he was just a governor then."

Quinn turned her head to look at him, eyebrow arched. "How does a governor explain puberty?"

"Awkwardly. He said something about pubes and using deodorant, and I think my subconscious has blocked the rest of it out." They made it to the last door that separated the residence from the rest of the building. "Seriously, we've only got like four minutes alone with them before they come to shuffle us out to dinner. You can survive four minutes, right?"

"Just don't leave me alone with them."

"I wouldn't do that to you."

XxXxX

An outside observer would have thought that Dwight Evans depended on Quinn's single vote to win the upcoming election, such was the strength of his charm offensive. Seeing him smile and squeeze her hand and gush about how happy he was to meet her, one would never guess that he'd nearly exploded when he'd learned she was joining the family. And that explained why he'd never lost a single election, from running for school board when he was nineteen, to ousting an incumbent to steal the White House. The man had charisma.

"You are just lovely, sweetheart," Sam's mother said, clasping Quinn's hands in hers.

"Thank you so much, ma'am. It's really such an honor to meet you both."

"Please, Quinn, we're all going to be family soon. You can call us by our names."

Ugh. Sam had been surprised when his mom, usually the more down to earth parent, hadn't criticized the plan for Sam to get married for the sole purpose of political expediency. To be clear, if he was going to get married at all, he had no particular objections to marrying Quinn. But this, this secret engagement and White House wedding to play for votes? As he'd said to Quinn, it was batshit crazy.

"Uh, mom, Quinn and I still haven't really talked about that, so -"

They weren't going to discuss it then, either. The White House butler arrived to usher everyone down to the State Dining Room to meet the guests for photos.

Sam snagged Quinn's hand as they followed his parents. "Just to warn you, this is going to be super boring. Lots of speeches and then we'll probably have to watch someone play the violin." For four years he'd been asking his dad to invite Aerosmith to the White House, but so far he had jack shit to show for all his begging. "My choice would have been to take you to a Toby Keith concert."

XxXxX

"I should have kicked that guy's ass." Sam slumped down next to Quinn on his couch. They were finally alone in his apartment, away from the cameras and the assistants, the bureaucrats and flunkies.

Quinn pushed her shoes off. "He's Canada's governor-general; he represents America's largest trading partner." She wiggled her toes; he could only imagine how much it hurt to wear those tiny shoes. "You can't kick his ass."

"When someone tries to feel up my girlfriend, I should be able to kick their ass, no matter what they do for a living." His shoes joined hers; Sam hoped his feet didn't smell. In spite of the fact that she was carrying his child and that they might be secretly engaged, he still didn't want her smelling his feet; you couldn't exactly say they had a long term relationship just yet.

He looked over to see Quinn with her eyes closed, her head resting on the back of the couch.

He'd figured a little late that she might not want to talk about how a world leader had tried to touch her ass, and had then passed it off as an accident. "I could heat up some lasagna," Sam offered, changing the subject. "That fancy crap they serve at those things never fills me up."

When Quinn did open her eyes and speak, she didn't accept the offer of reheated lasagna. "Can I use your tub?"

That wasn't what he'd been expecting. "Uh, sure."

"My back hurts from wearing these heels all night, and a bath will help," she said, standing up to a popping sound from her joints.

Sam led the way to his bathroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it was much bigger and nicer than the average college dorm room; actually, it wasn't even in the same category. He pulled a towel and washcloth from the bathroom cabinet and set it on the edge of the tub before turning to the faucet. "I've never used this thing, so you can break it in." Looking for something to say, Sam said, "Hey, a congressman from Indiana gave me some fancy soaps after dad signed off on some funding to build a soap factory in his district. I'll be right back."

Sam found the smelly box in the guest room where he always tossed all the crap given to him by people trying to impress his father. When he got back to the bathroom, the tub was filling up.

"Unzip me?" Quinn asked.

He immediately forgot about the dumb soap. Sam knew he had to play this cool; they were having a baby together, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. It got kind of hard to think at all when his fingers touched her back, when he fumbled with the zipper at the back of her dress. He pulled it down, revealed more skin. Sam swallowed hard when she turned to face him, when she grabbed his shoulder to brace herself as she stood on one foot to step out of the dress.

So, was he supposed to look? He didn't know. She's standing right in front of him, taking off her clothes. But what if he looks and she gets pissed off? Girls do that kind of thing. But he wants to look. He throws caution to the wind.

"Hey?"

"Hmm?" She wasn't paying much attention to him.

"Umm, I know I should probably be really chill or whatever, but, uh, am I supposed to look? Because I wanna look, but I'll only look if you want me to look." He continued to pointedly stare over her shoulder. He hoped she appreciated the sacrifice.

The slightest of grins touched her lips. "I really didn't think it was a big deal."

"Lady, I don't know what world you're living in, but in my world, a naked girl is a big deal."

She giggled. "You're sweet."

Sam was about to say something else, he couldn't remember what, but then she unfastened her bra. He definitely looked, and didn't notice her smirk. He didn't notice anything else.

But his parents had raised a gentleman, so he figured the polite thing to do would be to give her some privacy. When he made a pained, reluctant move to leave the room, Quinn said, "Hey, would you mind giving me a shoulder rub?"

He turned back around and tried to keep his eyes on hers, no mean feat, considering. "Like, right now?" She pushed her underwear down and turned to get in the bathtub. She didn't look pregnant, not from any angle.

"Well, let me sit down first." A quiet sigh, maybe even a moan, escaped from her lips as she lowered herself into the steaming water.

Sam held the folded towel over his groin.

This shouldn't be a big deal. Obviously he'd seen her naked before. But he'd been drunk, and the memory was hazy. Right now, here in front of him, was clear as day. And so what? Quinn obviously didn't think it was a big deal. So what?

So, he's hard as a rock and it felt like his underwear was cutting off the circulation to his dick.

He woke up when she cleared her throat. "Sure," he said, answering a question he didn't remember. Sam got down on his knees behind the bathtub and pushed his fingers through her hair to get to her shoulders. Another contented sigh from her. His briefs kept getting tighter.

Sam listened to her talk about a speech the Secretary of Energy had made that week. In the rush of blood down to his groin, he'd almost forgotten what a political junky she was. This was a girl who'd worked her way to a job in the White House. Ugh, he felt another pang of guilt over how that ended. But then she told him that whatever he was doing with his hands felt nice, and all other thoughts dissolved, much like how the bubbles in the bath were dissolving, giving him a pretty nice view.

She finished, and Sam tried not to ogle as she stood, water dripping between her breasts, pink from the heat of the bath. He gave her his bathrobe. Sam didn't wear bathrobes because he was a straight, twenty-two year old guy, but this one had his name on it under the presidential seal. All the perks came with monogramming.

"Do you mind if I stay here tonight? Even with your guys driving, it takes forever to get to my apartment from this side of town."

"Uh, no, of course." God, before the night was over his head was going to explode. "Mi casa es tu casa." No one in history had ever sounded more lame, he decided right then. Sam really wanted to punch himself.

But Quinn giggled. "You're getting better at Spanish."

He shrugged, but liked the compliment. "Thanks to you." She'd been helping him with some of his coursework; he'd actually gotten a B on his last political science exam.

State banquets go on for forever, or at least Sam thought so, so it was sort of late. But he was kind of pent up, for obvious reasons, and besides, if they went to bed now, he'd have to figure out if she meant to sleep with him, or if he was supposed to sleep on the couch. Part of him thought that watching her take a bath meant that the night was headed in one particular direction, but the other part acknowledged that he had a very limited understanding of the female brain, so he didn't want to make any assumptions.

"Do you wanna watch a movie or something?"

She felt really good tucked into his side on the couch. It didn't hurt that she was just wearing a bathrobe. Sam had his arm looped around her waist, hand on her hip, as they watched _NCIS_ , because it was two in the morning and they couldn't find anything else.

"I think I'd like to see an aircraft carrier," Quinn said as they watched the agents investigate the murder of a petty officer on the high seas.

"We could probably work that out," he mumbled, not paying much attention to the TV. "I know some people." He, subtly, he hoped, pulled her a little closer.

Quinn turned to him, their faces close now. "I don't think you're very interested in finding out who killed the petty officer."

"No." He kissed her. When they broke apart her face was flushed. His face was always flushed, so they matched. "We could go to my room," Sam offered.

She didn't have to do more than nod.

XxXxX

Sam rolled off, spent and red from his cheeks to his chest.

"You came, right?"

She was still breathing hard, too, her chest heaving. Quinn turned her head to look at him. "Do you always ask women that?"

He did his best shrug, but he was tired, so it was kinda shallow. "I read in _Cosmo_ that chicks fake it sometimes."

"Why were you reading _Cosmo_?"

"Research."

He didn't care that she rolled her eyes; she's even beautiful when she looks exasperated. "This isn't your fault, because men are always stupid after they orgasm." She ran her hand over his bicep; Sam made a point to flex so she got the full effect. "No, I didn't fake it. If it hadn't happened, I would've let you know, so you could do something about it."

He doesn't think he's stupid after he cums. It's just that the world always seems a whole lot better, like, everything is bright and warm and pleasant. He felt like he could do anything and there were no bad ideas. But whatever. "I'll do something about it any time you want." Alright, admittedly that did sound stupid.

"Thank you for making my point." She smiled and kissed his lips.

Quinn gave him a questioning look when he pulled away.

"Be right back."

He liked the way her eyes so obviously took everything in as he walked back from the bathroom with a warm washcloth. He'd read, also in _Cosmo,_ that women liked it if you helped with the clean up, since it kinda was your mess.

"Take a picture," Sam smirked as she made no move to look away from his crotch. "It'll last longer."

"I was just confirming my suspicions."

"What, that I'm hung like a horse?" He positioned himself on his knees and gently pushed the washcloth between her legs, definitely noticing the way her eyes widened when he touched her. As a little extra touch he did a body roll to make his dick flop, because yeah, he is an idiot after he cums.

"A pony maybe," she giggled. "No, I'd always thought there was no way you were a natural blonde. Seeing you naked, I know I was right."

Sam stuck his tongue out at her and climbed to the head of the bed, pulling her into his arms. "You're lucky I still like you after that pony remark." He pushed his knee between her legs, kissed into the crook of her neck. She smelled like heat and exertion. "I like you a lot, actually."

She fell asleep first, and for a while, he stayed awake, thinking tired, hazy, thoughts. She was probably right, he probably was stupid after sex. But part of him wondered if this whole situation wasn't so bad.

Being with her didn't feel stupid at all.

XxXxX

He wanted to do something super thoughtful for her, something that would be really meaningful to her, specifically.

Sam was lying back in his bed, hands linked behind his head, feeling pretty good about himself. He'd woken up next to a beautiful woman and made sure that the very first thing he did for the day was kiss her. She'd said that she "loved" his lips, which for some reason had compelled him to tell her what jerks in high school had called him.

"Trouty Mouth?"

He nodded. "But you know what? it doesn't bother me anymore. I own the Trouty Mouth."

To prove it, he'd kissed her again, and then kissed her throat, and then kissed her chest, and then further, and then further, and finally her fingers were clenching in his hair as she moaned his name. He'd looked up from between her legs, his smile slick and wet from what he'd done for her.

When she finally caught her breath, and it took a while he'd been pleased to note, Quinn said, "It's not a bad nickname."

So, he wanted to keep the ball rolling, and make today great for her, too. He could hear the shower running and thought about seeing if he could help out in there, assist with those hard to reach places. But when she'd left his bed, Quinn had said if they showered together, they'd never get out of the house. That didn't sound horrible to Sam, but whatever.

He wondered if she'd like to see the Declaration of Independence. She was the biggest nerd he'd ever met, so she'd probably really enjoy that. He knew he could make some calls and get them backstage access. The other day she'd crushed his dreams and told him that _National Treasure_ was a lie, and there was no map, but he'd still like to check for himself.

Or maybe she'd like to go to the very top of the Washington Monument. He knew that visiting a building that looked exactly like a gigantic penis could only rekindle feelings from their night together, so that seemed like it could be a good idea. He'd think on it some more and come up with an awesome plan.

But it was hard to think when he could hear the shower running, and he knew she was just in there, all alone. It didn't take much to convince himself that she was probably lonely. Sam Evans had never been great at self-denial, which was how he found himself pulling back the shower curtain and stepping under the hot spray.

"Sam." She looked kind of annoyed, but she was also naked, so he'd willingly weather the storm.

"Sorry, but I had no choice." He grabbed her hips and pulled her close. Looking down into her eyes, he said in his most serious voice, "This is a national security issue."

"National security?" He knew she wasn't terribly irritated by his interruption when she linked her arms behind his neck and pressed her chest to his. "Isn't that what government guys say so they can do whatever they want and get away with it?"

"Exactly."

XxXxX

Sam was about to go outside to tell the Secret Service where he wanted to go that day, he'd decided on the Declaration of Independence as a surprise, when they came in on their own accord.

"Sir, the president's chief of staff needs to see you and Ms. Fabray right away."

Yeah, as if he'd ruin this perfect day by going to see that assclown. "I don't work for him. Tell him we're busy today." Quinn was still in his bedroom getting dressed, but as soon as she was ready, Sam planned on spending the whole day together, and he wasn't going to let Joe Stebbins, Washington's premier asshole, intrude on that.

The agent looked nervous, which was a hard look to pull off for a guy who stood over six feet tall and carried multiple weapons. "Sir, he sent this." He handed Sam an iPad.

The screen displayed an article from the _Star._ The _Star_ wasn't exactly a tabloid, but it printed "news" that was beneath the, admittedly limited, dignity of the more prestigious papers like the _Times_ or the _Post._ The _Star_ had been kind enough to share his stolen transcripts with the world.

He'd suffered from dyslexia most of his life. Most of the time, he had a fairly good handle on it, especially if he was calm, and the surrounding environment was quiet. But after he read the title, the words on the screen in front of him started swirling around, reversing order, refusing to cooperate. Sam forced himself to sit on the couch and focus.

 _White House Girlfriend A Teen Mom Who Gave Up Her Baby_

It didn't make sense. He hadn't known her for very long, but what he saw on the screen seemed so far removed for the girl he knew, the girl he'd been with last night. Sam immediately started to hurt for her.

Being the son of a famous father, Sam knew what it was like to have your personal business exposed to the light of day. Now the whole world knew something she hadn't even told him. And this, if what the article said was true - he couldn't imagine having something so heart wrenchingly personal displayed in bold print for everyone to see.

Obviously, the article was supposed to shame her. That's all the press was about, at least in Sam's opinion. They knew she was now associated with a famous family, so they'd set about digging for anything they possibly could find that would elicit public interest. It didn't matter how much it hurt, it didn't matter that the story was about a fifteen year old having to make an impossible choice.

He heard her coming out of his room, dressed and ready for the amazing day he'd promised her. Sam closed the webpage. He knew he couldn't let her find out about this from Stebbins.

"Hey," she said, obviously a little confused when he pulled her into a hug. "I know I took a while to get dressed, but still."

Sam squeezed her hand and put on what he hoped was a comforting smile. "Yeah, well, I missed you."

He kissed her forehead. His mom had always done that when he was little and feeling sad. It'd always helped. "Let's sit down. I've got something I have to tell you."

 _To Be Continued_

 **If I had my druthers, they would always be happy together and nothing would ever go wrong or get in the way. But I suppose that stories demand drama to keep them moving. Anyway, thank you to Written-in-hearts who always leaves such nice reviews, and also thank you to "Guest," who was very kind in reviewing chapter two! You write faster when you know people are reading.**

 **I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!**


	4. Chapter 4

She couldn't understand what anyone was saying over the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

Stebbins was standing behind his desk, his face contorted with anger. Periodically he'd slam his fist on the wooden surface of the paper strewn tabletop. She heard that, the echo that rang out in the room, but still couldn't make out the words. She could see Sam's face, he was angry, too, though he wasn't looking at her. Their voices sounded like she was listening from underwater, muffled and wet.

For the first time, she wasn't awed to be in the nerve center of the White House. She hardly knew how she got there. Quinn remembered Sam holding her hand; that probably explained it. She was sitting in the very room where the president's sweeping domestic agenda had been formulated. It didn't mean anything to her, not now.

"Yeah? Well, you can go fuck yourself," Sam was saying, yelling, actually.

Quinn didn't know what the chief of staff had said to make him so angry. Sam didn't seem like the type of guy to yell things like that. He was so sweet. Sweet and warm.

She felt him take her hand. "C'mon, we don't have to listen to this."

Though she hadn't heard the shouts and the admonitions when they'd been alone in the room, now she felt everyone looking at her as she followed Sam down the hallway. Staffers, aides, lobbyists, all of them turned to stare at her as she passed. But they were just a mass, not individuals. If she'd been aware, Quinn would have noticed the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury turn to watch her leave. But it was all a haze.

Sam held the door open for her and followed her into the back of the dark SUV.

Quinn didn't remember telling anyone where she wanted to go, but she was glad when the Secret Service agent opened the door to her apartment. Her roommate was gone, so that was a gift from God.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Sam asked, his eyes wider than usual. She'd made it to her bedroom door. He looked worried.

"I think I'd like to be alone for a little while."

He nodded. "Sure." Sam squeezed her hand. "Just let me know if you need anything."

The click of the bedroom door shutting behind her was the first clear, distinct sound she'd heard since he'd told her about the newspaper story.

Finally, she was alone.

XxXxX

She woke up hours later to a splitting headache.

But the pain was clear. It was bracing, it forced everything else into sharp relief. It pushed the shock away, and finally she could see, could hear, clearly.

Beth.

Quinn hadn't thought about her daughter in so long. At first it had been an act of desperate willpower, pleading with herself to stop the torturous second guessing and self doubt in the days after she'd handed her baby over to another woman. Finally, after months and months, her mind turned, at last, to other things. That had been years ago. Since then the memories of her sophomore year in high school had calcified and settled into a locked room in the back of her mind.

Seeing the picture of that little face in the article had been like a knife wound.

The mirror in her bedroom revealed a pale complexion and red, swollen eyes. Quinn pulled her hair into a ponytail to keep it from touching her face. She stepped out of the dress she'd been wearing for the "special day" Sam had promised her. Promised before the news broke.

Ironically, the t-shirt on top in her dresser was one from high school, faded red with the school's name in peeling white letters. She wore it to bed all the time with no second thoughts, but seeing it today seemed almost eerie. Quinn pulled it over her head.

Her phone showed nine in the evening and that she'd missed seven calls. Three were from her mother, and the rest from friends, surely calling about the article in the paper. She's not hurt that Puck's name wasn't on the missed call list. She knew he'd worked just as hard as she to forget everything and move on. They haven't spoken since their graduation.

Quinn's not surprised to find that Sam hadn't left. He's asleep on her couch, arms wrapped around a throw pillow. He's sprawled across the cushions with his feet hanging over the edge, his frame too long. Standing over him, she noticed for the first time his eyelashes, resting against his face; they're long like a girl's. They matched his pink lips, lips that plenty of women paid their plastic surgeons to emulate.

His eyes fluttered open when she touched his shoulder.

"Come to bed. You're going to hurt your neck sleeping like that."

Sam sat up, and his face showed that his neck, and his back, too, probably, already hurt. But even though he was the one in discomfort, he asked her if she was alright, and they both knew he wasn't talking about any crick in her neck.

She nodded, and left it at that.

He didn't, of course. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Can we in the morning?" She'd slept all day long, but she's still tired, exhausted from sleeping, maybe, if that was possible.

Sam followed her back to her bedroom. "Is it weird if I use your toothbrush? Are we to that stage yet? I could just gargle or something if it's weird."

She ought to know that he's something special if he's able to make her smile, even a small one, on a day like this one. She does know. "You seem fairly clean, so I guess it's not too weird."

He came back from the bathroom and shut her bedroom door behind him. Sam pulled off his shirt and jeans and neatly folded them before placing them on a chair in the corner. When he kissed her he tasted minty, and that made her grin again, just a little.

She shouldn't be tired after sleeping for the last twelve hours, but her body felt like she'd been dragged behind a speeding car. Quinn knew she'd have to deal with it in the morning, but right now his chest was warm and his arms were strong, so she slept.

XxXxX

She woke up alone.

She was totally alone, actually. Sam was gone, and her roommate had either already left for the day or never come home last night. She wondered if Kim had run into Sam this morning. Probably not, as Quinn hadn't heard the sound of giggles shrill enough to pierce eardrums.

Quinn knew she should probably use this quiet time to call her mother. There were missed calls on her phone; she'd surely seen the news from yesterday. But she knew she'd have to talk about it with Sam, and she just didn't feel like having that conversation twice. Quinn settled for sending her a text saying that she was alright and would call her later. It was a bitchy thing to do, and she felt like a bad daughter for it.

Sam arrived a few minutes later, his arms laden with food. She soon remembered that she hadn't eaten at all the day before, and suddenly her stomach was raging for the smells coming from the bags he was carrying.

"That's what I thought," he said with a smile when she tore into a Greek yogurt. "And I know you're a dainty girl, but you can eat real food, too. I won't judge." He handed her a breakfast sandwich. She wanted to kiss him when she saw it had avocado.

She took a shower after they finished eating, and when she finished, he was still on her couch, waiting. Quinn had started to notice that he spent a lot of time waiting on her. As much as she didn't want to, she knew she might as well get on with it.

"I guess you want to talk now, about Beth?" She hadn't told him her daughter's name, but it was in the article, along with a current picture that Quinn herself had never seen. She supposed they got it from Shelby's Instagram; for years Quinn had made a point not to look.

"Only if you want to." He patted the space next to him. "You don't owe me any explanations."

He looked so sweet and earnest, so, she tried to think of the word, so steadfast. She'd had a few relationships through college, but nothing since graduation and getting the internship. None of the relationships had been bad, exactly, but none had lasted.

"You really are a prince." That's what the media called him sometimes, America's Prince Charming.

He blushed. "What do you mean?"

"Guys don't say things like that. They don't do the things you do." Any previous boyfriend would have demanded an explanation, as if her having a baby eight years before they'd met had been a betrayal of their relationship. They would have definitely ended things after learning of her teenage mistake.

"I think you've been hanging out with the wrong kind of guy." Sam touched her hand, rubbed her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. "I really care about you, Quinn."

Maybe he saw her reluctance, the way her pupils dilated. He probably saw her swallow several times, trying to work out a way to start. Before she could answer, Sam said, "Hey, I'll go first."

"Go first with what?"

"I'll tell you about something that happened to me when I was a teenager."

She couldn't imagine that something had happened to him that the media hadn't already reported, when Sam said, "I've never told another person about this, ever. You'll be the only person who knows."

Quinn didn't know what to say. She decided to copy his sentiments. "Only if you want me to know." She couldn't put into words how thankful she was that he was giving her an opportunity to delay baring her own soul.

"I do." He pushed himself back into the couch, moved around to get comfortable. He didn't take long to collect himself or decide how he wanted to start.

"When I was sixteen, my dad was governor, and it's not the White House, but it's hectic enough, you know? It seemed like he and mom were always busy with something. I mean, compared to now it's like he had all the time in the world back then, but at the time, it just seemed like I never saw them."

The intonation of his voice was so genuine. Most teenagers would want less time with their parents, but Quinn had no trouble believing that Sam Evans, no matter his age, had wanted time with his family. It was something she'd been noticing since she met him.

"And I was sixteen and stupid, so I started acting out. You know how you do."

She did. Even aside from the pregnancy, her own teenage years had been a maelstrom of high school rivalries, backstabbing, a brief rebel stage, and a relationship with the school's resident bad boy. She was embarrassed by it all, now.

"Now I realize that I wanted his attention, but I didn't see things like that, then. That was the time when he started talking about running for president. And it was like he was gone even more. He probably should have bought a house in Iowa, he spent so much time there." Sam clenched his hands in the hem of his shirt.

Quinn honestly had no idea what he was building towards. She can't imagine anything drastic or bad that would fit with the man sitting next to her now. But, she knew better than anyone that you're a different person at sixteen.

"I was driving home from school one day," he said, adding, "they got me a car to buy me off, but it didn't work. I just drove too fast to spite them, and the governor's kid doesn't get speeding tickets." Sam wasn't looking at her anymore. It was like he was looking through her, back to some previous point in his life.

"I was driving home, and, it's the stupidest thing, I have no idea what I was thinking, I saw a billboard for a strip club."

Oh, well that's gross, but he's certainly not the only man in the world to ever go to one of those places. Sixteen is definitely too young, but really, Quinn can't imagine why a story about him seeing his first naked woman would be such a big deal.

"Like I said, I have no idea what I was thinking. But I went home and dyed my hair, so no one would recognize me." He grinned at her, "as you pointed out, I'm not a natural blonde."

Now she's back to being unsure of where the story is going.

"Anyway," Sam shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal, "I went to the strip club that weekend, lied about being twenty-one, and told them I wanted a job."

She gasped. There was no way. Quinn said as much.

"I know, it's gross. But they bought it, and for two weekends in a row, I stripped on stage."

"Sam, _why_?" She really cannot even begin to imagine, though perhaps the idea shouldn't be so strange to her. At around the same age, she'd dyed her own hair, but pink, not blonde, and taken up smoking and screwing. But she made no claims to being a good person like Sam Evans.

"I dunno. To get back at my parents for not paying attention to me, probably. That makes the most sense. There's no better way to be the center of attention than to take off your clothes in front of a bunch of middle aged housewives." Her mouth must have been hanging open, because he added, "It was a rush, it was crazy. I loved it. I knew it could ruin dad's career if I got caught."

Her mind was going a thousand miles an hour, trying to force what she'd just learned into her mental image of the boy who'd been stealing more and more space in her heart. Quinn had always tended to compartmentalize things, but it was next to impossible to find a place for this.

"You said you only did it for two weekends. Why did you stop?"

His face didn't reflect the gravity of his words. "I lost my virginity to a woman who came backstage after the show. She tried to give me money afterwards." Sam looked down at his lap, eyes on his twisting fingers, "Mom and dad weren't horrible parents, they'd taught me right from wrong, and her giving me that money kinda woke me up, I guess."

"I don't know what to say." And she didn't, so she hugged him. But then something came to her. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

Anyone else might argue that nothing had happened _to_ him, that he'd made his own decisions and asked for what he got. But Quinn knew, better than most, what it was like to feel trapped, like you didn't have any control, like if you could just get someone, anyone, to look your way, then everything would be alright. There was no room to think or maneuver or choose. You just ran blindly until you got hurt.

"Hey," Sam said, hugging her back. "It's ok, it was a long time ago." He spoke into her hair. "I guess I'm over it." He pushed her back a little so that they were looking at one another. "I just wanted you to know about it."

She nodded. "I'm glad you told me."

He smiled. "I know we haven't been together for very long." Sam took both of her hands. "So I hope this isn't moving too fast, but you're important to me, you know? I want you to know things about me."

It's probably implicit that he wanted her to tell him about her past in return, but she doesn't feel pressured to do so. Quinn leaned forward and kissed him, lightly, on the lips. "Thank you for trusting me with that. You're important to me, too."

XxXxX

It didn't surprise her, but the Secret Service agents were very, very good. She knew they were out there, watching them, ready to intervene at a movement's notice, but Quinn couldn't find them, couldn't catch even a glimpse.

There are six of them, instead of the usual two, because Sam had told them he wanted to go for a walk in the park. He'd explained to her that they hated "variables" like being outside in areas that were more difficult to secure and defend. "But I'm tired of being cooped up inside."

The park was fairly busy, with families and couples having a nice time, but Quinn doubted it was a coincidence that not even one person crossed their path; just the Secret Service doing their job, unseen and unheard.

It was a beautiful day, and he held her hand as they walked down a shady path.

"I was the head cheerleader," Quinn explained, "and president of the Celibacy Club."

Sam snorted. "That sounds like the lamest club ever. I bet dad has some friends in the Senate who'd love to steer tax dollars that way, instead of supporting real sex ed classes."

She knew he was joking, but he wasn't wrong. She'd never given a second thought to birth control until well after she got pregnant. All the sex education classes at her school had been abstinence only, and her parents definitely had never mentioned anything of the sort. Head cheerleaders and aspiring prom queens didn't think about tawdry things like sex.

"I was extremely naive, and this guy on the football team had wine coolers, and then," she took a deep breath, "then I got pregnant." Quinn looked up at him. "So, when you add in what we did, you can tell that I have a pattern of being stupid and fertile."

Sam frowned. "That's not funny."

"It's true, though."

"It won't seem stupid when we have our baby."

Through the whirlwind of getting pregnant by the president's son, and then realizing that an entire administration was planning on how to use her situation to its electoral benefit, Quinn hadn't really thought much about their child. She'd only thought about how her life was changing now, and hadn't considered that whatever was happening in the present would pale in comparison to the total upheaval that was coming.

"Can you tell me about Beth?" Sam asked.

Quinn didn't know what to say. She didn't know anything about her child, she hadn't seen her since she was an infant.

"Giving her up was the hardest thing I've ever done."

He put his arm around her shoulder. "She has blonde hair and dark eyes." Her own eyes started to burn, and he probably picked up on it, because he steered them towards a bench under a tree. "And on the day she was born, she went home with Shelby." Quinn didn't explain; she knew he'd read the article.

"For a long time I didn't know what to do. I kind of had a crazy period." If he asked, she'd tell him about the pink hair, the black clothes, and everything else, but she didn't feel like going into it now.

"I don't think anyone could blame you for that."

That almost made her laugh; plenty of people had been able to blame her at the time.

"I'm sorry that being with me made them dig all that up." Sam squeezed her hand. "No one should have to read about their life in the newspaper."

Quinn pushed herself into his side. She liked that his bodyguards were keeping everyone away, keeping anyone from looking at them. She felt like everyone had been looking at her for weeks now. It was exhausting.

His arm was around her shoulders; she pulled it down across her chest and held his hand in both of hers. He's lanky and always sprawled out whenever he sat down, and now it felt like he was all around her. It felt good.

"Do you think I should have kept her? Should I have tried to raise her?"

Sam let her play with his fingers. "Do you think about that a lot?"

Not anymore, not until just yesterday. Quinn remembered the vaguest details of a hazy dream from her day long attempt to hide in sleep. In the dream she was living in DC, and she had a baby, but the face was unclear. She didn't know which baby, the first or the new.

"For a long time I did. I thought about it every day."

"I guess I'm supposed to say that you would've done an awesome job."

Quinn waited for the rest of his answer.

"And knowing you, you definitely would have."

She doubted that, but wanted him to continue with whatever he had to say. She knew it'd be honest. "But?"

"But, you were just a kid." She felt him kiss her head. "I'm glad your baby got a good home, and that you got to grow up. I'm glad you got to go to college, and come to work in this swamp of a city. I'm glad you came to that boring fundraiser."

Quinn knew that she wouldn't believe any other man who that, only this one. "Even though my going to that fundraiser means you're going to be a dad at twenty-two? It's going to turn your life upside down."

"My life's never been right side up." Sam pulled himself away from her so that he could turn on the bench and look directly at her. "I know our situation wasn't in your plan. It wasn't in mine, either."

"Sam —"

"Lemme finish." He let his hand come to rest on her knee. "We didn't plan on this, and you definitely didn't plan on all my baggage being in your life. But I just want you to know, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you still get to do what you're meant to. I should have told you that from the start."

At first, she didn't know what to say. But then she realized she didn't have to say anything. The way he smiled at her said that he knew.

They stood and he took her hand, and they continued their walk through the park. They didn't talk about anything serious or sad. It was all light, which left her thoughts free to drift.

More and more lately, it seemed like she always wanted to kiss him. More and more, she had to tell herself to keep it together and not stupidly rush things.

More and more, she thought she might love him.

 _To Be Continued_

 **Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! It's extremely encouraging to read what people think!**


	5. Chapter 5

His dad was going over the time-limit for his speech, but who's going to tell the President of the United States of America to shut up? The leader of the free world droned on and on, and even though he had a team of speechwriters working on every word he ever said, the commencement address wasn't that great. It was all about how the promise of tomorrow hinged on the hard work of today. Blah, blah, blah.

Sam didn't think he was being jerk for wishing that his graduation day could be a little more about him, and a little less about his dad. But whatever. You couldn't blame the university for using the fact that one particular student had a famous father to get the most sought after speaker in the world. The appointments secretary said that of course the president would be happy to deliver the address and accept an honorary degree; he knew it would mean so much to his son.

Yeah.

From his seat amongst his fellow graduates it was easy for Sam to find Quinn and his mom in the audience; they were the two people surrounded by men in dark suits and sunglasses.

Even from a distance she looked radiant. Quinn, not his mom. His mom was pretty, but he didn't tend to think about how she looked. She was his mom and that was gross. But from his seat, Sam could see his girlfriend's glow. She'd started glowing lately, and not in a weird way that involved CIA plots to create the ultimate super solider.

She had the littlest baby bump; it was almost impossible to see unless she pulled her shirt tight over her middle. It was adorable and he loved it. Sam knew she wasn't being serious when she complained about being fat.

Finally, his father stepped away from the microphone. But then someone else started speaking, and yeah, he knew he'd probably never graduate college because this ceremony would never end.

He really wouldn't have graduated college without Quinn. Well, if there'd really been a threat of not graduating his dad would have made a call, because the president's son can't not finish college. But Sam knew that he graduated for real, on his own terms, thanks to Quinn. She studied with him, helped him to organize his time. She coached him through exams and proofread his essays. She'd pulled him through this last semester, and he could admit that more than once he'd been kicking and screaming. Figuratively, anyway. But she got him through it.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

But you couldn't just say that any old way. For Sam, it was extremely important that it didn't come out like, "Well, we're stuck together thanks to this baby, so we might as well make the best of it." He knew that he'd love her even if they weren't expecting a baby. She just fit perfectly in his life, right where he needed her.

At last, they started calling names. Sam just hoped he didn't trip.

XxXxX

It was hard to think with a beautiful woman straddling your hips, her hands gripping your shoulders as she leaned down to kiss you, to press her body into yours and completely take you, take everything you are and were and will be.

That's why he screwed up.

"God, I love you," Sam mumbled into her ear when she collapsed against him, tired and hot and wet from sex.

His eyes immediately shot open as soon as it left his mouth. This was not the plan. The plan involved flowers and a violinist while they sat under the stars atop Mt. Rushmore.

You're notsupposed to say _that_ during sex. He'd read it in _Cosmo,_ for fuck's sake! He got all of his relationship information from _Cosmo,_ and it hadn't failed him yet. Saying it while you were doing the nasty could mean that you only said it in appreciation of having your world rocked. You were supposed to say it when you had a clear head and everyone had their clothes on. Shit, shit, shit.

Quinn didn't react.

At least, he didn't think she did. She might be silently seething, but she's lying on top of him and he thought he'd probably feel it if she was seething. Her face is pressed into his shoulder, so she was perfectly positioned to bite into his neck and kill him, if _Cosmo_ was right and you really weren't supposed to tell a girl you loved her while you were, err, inside her.

"Um, I'm sorry." He decided to get ahead of this, maybe salvage the evening.

Quinn groaned as she made herself more comfortable against him. They're sticky and the room smelled like sex. Her arm went around his neck, fingers loosely gripped in his hair. "For what?"

Did she not notice his epic fuck up?

"I, uh, I said that I loved you, you know, while we were on the train to humpsville station."

She pushed herself up to look down into his eyes. "Except for the horrible train metaphor, why would you apologize?"

Maybe she wasn't enlightened enough to know that you're supposed to read _Cosmo._ Sam said as much.

Quinn rolled her eyes. "God, I'm canceling your subscription. It's weird that you even have a subscription to _Cosmo._ " She pushed her fingers through his hair, brushed his bangs away from his eyes. "You can tell me that whenever you like." She leaned in close, her lips almost touching his ear. "I love you, too."

He was getting better about thinking before talking, so he didn't make the mistake of asking her if her confession of love meant that she'd do anal. Cause he'd been wondering about that lately; _Cosmo_ said it could be fun.

Instead he said, "I love you. I just wanted to say it again."

It was the right thing to say.

XxXxX

He hadn't seen Joe Stebbins since the media had reported on Quinn's teenage pregnancy. The chief of staff had gone apoplectic with rage that there might be a weak link in his plan to transform her into America's darling and then get the two of them married with the whole world watching. He'd said that it would be harder to sell their own baby as an "accident of love" when she'd already had the same accident a few years earlier.

"It makes her look like a whore," Stebbins had said that day, whereupon Sam yelled choice words of his own, before storming out of the office, a dazed and shocked Quinn in tow. Sam was in no hurry to see the man again.

"If we don't listen to what he has to say, he'll just do what he wants anyway, and we won't have any input," Quinn said. They were in the backseat of the SUV, on their way to the White House. They'd been summoned.

"Does it ever bother you that there are like, four wars going on right now, and the second most powerful man in the country is busy trying to plan our relationship?"

Quinn shrugged. "It does, but Washington's built on distractions like this. It's like that game where you try to guess which cup is covering a coin, but the cups keep moving."

When the secretary showed them into Stebbins's office, they found the chief of staff alone.

"Where's my dad?" If Sam had to meet with the world's leading douchebag, he's at least like there to be someone present who had the authority to fire said douchebag. The thought improved his mood.

"The president is meeting with the Peruvian ambassador. But we can handle our business here."

"And what's that?" He just wanted to get out of the room. It felt humid, like a terrarium for a lizard.

The chief waved them towards two chairs. Quinn sat, but Sam remained standing behind her, gripping the back of her chair. If the functionary thought his boss's son was being rude, he didn't seem to mind. "Obviously, the real nature of your relationship with Ms. Fabray cannot remain a secret for long." His eyes looked down at her stomach.

"Babies are inconvenient that way," Sam said. Quinn reached over her shoulder and put her hand on his. She'd told him on the way over not to lose his cool, and Sam tried to keep to her advice. But it irked him worse than the cancellation of _Firefly_ that he was even having a conversation about this stuff with a politician.

"Exactly," Stebbins agreed, missing the sarcasm. "That being said, we want to announce that you two are engaged. If we get that out first, it will be easier to spin that you just couldn't wait, thus the baby."

Sam suppressed his desire to vomit. "But we're not engaged."

He lazily waved a hand. "Well, if you're going to be a stickler about it, ask her right now."

Quinn probably felt him seething; she spoke up before Sam could say anything rash. "Do you really think that our relationship is going to be a make or break issue in the campaign?"

The chief looked at her eyes for the first time since they'd arrived. "It's not my usual practice to explain my decisions to interns," he cleared his throat, "excuse me, I meant _former_ interns."

She squeezed his hand again. Sam knew that she would eventually make it in politics, because she was able to keep her cool; he could look down and see her face, beautiful and serene, as always. He wanted to punch the dude, but she was collected and calm. He tried to keep that in mind when every instinct he had was telling him to break the man's arm.

"But yes, this is going to be an important issue." The presidential gatekeeper sat down behind his desk. "A love story between two young people will enliven the campaign. Voters don't care about real issues, they care about soap operas. This is our opportunity to reach out to the Religious Right and the rest of the value voters."

"And it doesn't bother you at all," Sam said through clenched teeth, "that you're talking about our lives?"

Stebbins rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm _so_ sorry for giving your girlfriend a White House wedding. No girl in the world has ever wanted that. And please forgive me for doing my best to make sure that your father wins reelection, so that you can continue with your life of not having a job and sleeping with interns," He held up a finger. "Again, former intern. My mistake."

Quinn drug him out of the room after that, so he didn't have to depend on a presidential pardon to get away with murder.

XxXxX

"As much as I hate him, part of what he said wasn't wrong." That was probably what made Sam the most infuriated, that there was a kernel of truth in the chief of staff's speech.

"Which part?" Quinn continued typing without looking up at him. She'd been working on a policy paper for two weeks now, her take on the energy crisis. Sam didn't get it, like, at all, but she said that if she sent it to the right people, it might impress someone, and could, possibly, lead to a job offer.

"The part about me not doing anything."

That made her close the screen. "You do things."

In the vaguest sense, maybe. He'd graduated with a major in music. That had been a month ago, and he'd only written one song.

"You're writing songs all the time," she pressed. "You'll have enough for an album soon."

"Yeah, and I'm supposed to support our kid on an album that might never sell?" He actually wasn't depending on that. His grandfather owned the largest timber company in the southeast, so Sam and both of his siblings had substantial trust funds. The family business was what allowed Dwight Evans to run for office. Politics wasn't cheap.

So, they were basically living on someone else's money, and it sort of ate at him. Not that it had paid more than subsistence wages, but Quinn had lost her job, thanks to him, so neither of them were bringing anything in. But she at least was trying. She'd been writing policy analyses and sending them to think tanks and congressmen, hoping for a staff offer. Sam didn't know how he felt about her working while she was pregnant, well, he did know, but he wasn't going to say anything. He _had_ promised to do everything he could to make sure she lived up to her potential in politics, that their unplanned pregnancy wouldn't stop her. But "everything he could" didn't actually amount to much.

"I love it when you sing to me," she was saying. "And, hey, don't forget about that offer you got the other day," she said with what could only be described as a wicked grin.

Sam flipped her off. Last week he'd gone for a run, armed bodyguards in tow, and the day being hot, he'd gone without his shirt. No big deal, right? For the next two days he'd been a trending topic on Twitter, and then he'd received an offer to star in a "tasteful" photoshoot, "exposing body and soul" to the nation. They'd offered him a hundred grand and already had a title for the spread: _Hail to the Beef(cake)_

"Can you imagine what my dad would do if I told them yes?"

"Call up the National Guard?"

"He'd probably arm the nukes, too." Sam spread his arms. She interpreted his expression correctly and moved into his lap. He sighed happily when she settled into him. "Even though I don't know what to do with my life," Sam mumbled, his face pressed into the crook of her neck, "I'm not really disappointed with how things have worked out."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when you think about it, we didn't really know each other all that well when you got pregnant." His hands rested on her stomach, it ever so slightly larger than usual.

"That's putting it mildly." Quinn let her hands rest over his.

"And," Sam continued, "I think I was just really lucky that I happened to knock up an awesome girl that I love." He kissed her cheek. "I could've been stuck with a real bitch."

"You're so eloquent. But, I'm glad too. It was just by chance that I let a sweet boy drunkenly impregnate me. I could've been stuck with a real bastard."

Jokes aside, it was actually something that he thought about quite a bit. He'd stupidly slept with a stranger that first night. She was a beautiful stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. And they'd unwittingly made a decision that meant they would be involved, in one way or another, for the rest of their lives. Sam wondered if he ought to thank God, because he'd grown to love this girl, and it could have easily gone the other way.

Quinn interrupted his thoughts. "What should we tell Stebbins?"

Oh, she was talking about how various elements in the United States government were planning their future together. Yeah, he'd almost let himself forget about that.

Sam knew that he had a decision to make. He loved his dad, but he knew that he had to decide if he was living his own life, or if literally everything had to revolve around one man's career.

"I know that I'm in love with you, but this has to be about us." He wanted to touch her, to feel her. Sam settled for pushing a stray lock of blonde hair back from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. His thumb followed down the edge of her face. "It has to be when we think it's right. So, if you ever decide that you want to marry me, just tell me the time and place and I'll be waiting with my tux."

The first thing he'd noticed about her, the first thing he'd seen on the night that had changed their lives, was how beautiful her eyes appeared looking back at him. He was looking at them now, and maybe it was a pregnancy hormone thing, but she looked like she might cry. He hoped they were happy tears. Because he was happy. Whenever they were together like this, there was no White House, no photographers, no pressure. He was just happy.

Epilogue

Dwight Evans lost his campaign for reelection. It was the first electoral defeat in a storied career in politics. The pundits ascribed the unexpected result to a weak economy linked with a disappointing jobs forecast. Of those who claimed to know such things, not one analyst blamed the defeat, in whole or in part, on the marital status of the president's son. In fact, when in the last month of his presidency, just weeks before his opponent's inauguration, President Evans appeared on the White House steps with his newborn grandson, and his popularity soared to a record high. Pollsters spoke to how the scene humanized the commander-in-chief. It didn't hurt that the baby was adorable.

Just a day before the family would leave Washington on _Marine One_ for the last time, the chairman of the Grover Cleveland Center for Public Policy called Quinn. He'd read her paper on energy subsidies. "The next administration is going to make renewable energy a priority and I think we could benefit from your perspective." The squeal that came out of her mouth woke up their son, but that was alright, because Sam was ready.

The first week home from the hospital had been pure hell. Nothing stopped the crying. Diaper changes didn't work, feeding, rocking, walking and bouncing, riding in the car - none of it had any effect on the wailing coming from their son's tiny body. But then Sam had picked up his guitar. It turned out that his newborn was calmed by the dulcet tones of "Here Comes the Sun." Now Sam was writing his own lullabies. There were seven so far, one for each night of the week. Sam was trying to think of a pseudonym so he could submit them to a record label anonymously. He was thinking about "Evan Troutman," but Quinn said it needed some work.

So, when the baby started crying, Sam grabbed his guitar and sat down in front of the swing. He sang lyrics he'd written himself, inspired by the green eyes he'd fallen in love with twice over now. Those eyes were staring back at him from the swing, slowly disappearing under tired eyelids, until finally his son gave up and fell asleep. Sam finished the song anyway.

XxXxX

It was January in Washington, and too cold to have an infant outside for two hours for the inauguration, so the baby was happily snoozing inside with a nanny hired for just this one day. Quinn and Sam were committed to raising their child in a normal way, as normal as was possible when the grandfather was a soon to be former president who had sworn to remain a presence on the world stage.

In the great American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, the outgoing president always watched his successor take the oath of office, even if the two men loathed one another, as happened to be the case today. But standing behind his father, holding the hand of the woman he loved, the younger Evans had never been happier. He had a lot to be thankful for.

He hated the loss for his father's sake, but he was relieved that his own son wouldn't spend the first four years of his life in this toxic environment. He was excited that maybe other people might hear the songs he'd written. He was ecstatic that Quinn had been offered a job doing something she loved. And he was over the moon that under her glove she was wearing a ring on her finger that no one else in the world knew about yet.

As Sam watched this new president repeat the oath, he remembered how sad he'd been on this day, exactly four years earlier. He'd thought his life was over. And now, four years later, he knew that his life was just beginning.

It was daunting and scary and hopeful, and he couldn't wait to walk off this stage and get started.

The End

 **Thanks for reading!**


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